


The Missing Part of Myself

by araniladin



Category: RWBY
Genre: Abuse towards nice coats, Alcohol, F/F, Mentions of Gin - Freeform, Missing Limbs, THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED, The Barmaid and the ass, baked alaska, bartending au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 09:39:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15140318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/araniladin/pseuds/araniladin
Summary: After a horrible accident years ago that took Yang's arm and crippled her leg, she ends up working at as a bartender.  One boring night turns into something more.





	The Missing Part of Myself

Tuesday nights at the Drunken Mermaid were some of the most boring times Yang had ever experienced. Nothing wrong with boring. Boring nights meant no one losing a limb. Boring nights mean no new nightmares. Boring was good.

Yang closed up shop around one am, seeing as staying open for no one was stupid. Wash the used glasses, wash the unused glasses, Replace the empty keg of shitty ale with another shity ale. Why in Oum’s name did people drink this shit? It looked like piss, and tasted worse. Well, Yang assumed it tasted worse. Counting the draw and balancing the safe started up the headache. Yang blamed it partly on her injuries, and partly on the fact that Junior used an archaic stupid system that made cooking the books easier. To add to it all, she barely made a hundred lin in tips tonight. 

Hundred lin covered the prescription for the pain of her arm and leg. A half empty bottle of gin covered what she needed for sleep. Junior would take it out of her paycheck, but she needed something.

Her right arm pulsed in agony at the thought of the painkillers. Cheap metal and electronics, the prosthetic arm and hand let her pour drinks and wash dishes. Yang had stripped the plastic casing off after it started cracking. Little bit of soap and water, and it fell apart. Story of her life, things falling apart while she tried to fix them.

A long flannel shirt covered the bare metal limb tonight. She grabbed her jacket from the office, tugging a leather glove over the steely joints. People at the bar were too drunk to care about her hand, but people outside loved to stare. Three am might mean not a lot of people, but Yang kept up the habit still. Her coat went on over it all, and she walked out, grabbing her cane.

A cold breeze cut through the thick leather of her coat, making Yang debate a warm meal or a warm taxi to carry her home. Her hip ached, a counterpoint to the pain in her arm. The flesh hand chilled on the wood of her cane, a regrettable choice to ditch the other glove back in the summer. She gritted her teeth as comfort now battled comfort later.

“No, Yang, it’s just a little cold, the walk isn’t that far,” she muttered. Barely twenty minutes, and she had one last dose of painkillers waiting at home. Combined with the gin, she knew sleep would find her.

The crash from the alley startled Yang, the tip of her cane pointed at the sound. The wet impact of flesh on flesh froze Yang in her spot.

Another impact, this one mixed with the sound of bone on bone, drew Yang into the alley.

“Come on, bitch, say something.” A slap echoed from behind a dumpster. “What, you murder my boss, half my gang, and you have nothing to say for yourself? At least give me a scream.” The spine shivering sound of a knife being removed from its stealth pulled Yang closer.

A man with dirty red hair and a maroon jacket pinned someone against the wall of her bar. His back blocked out who it was, although Yang saw a pair of boots dangling between his legs, black leather with thick soles. Something thick and viscous dripped off the tip of one of them.

The man raised his arm over his head, a knife clutched in it. 

The cane smacked the back of his knees. He fell back. 

The cane hit the arm holding the knife. Bone crunched under the solid wood. 

The knife slid into the darkness. 

The cane hit shoulder, chest, neck, head. 

Crunch, crunch, crunch, snap. The bottom half of the cane followed the knife, the top half pulling Yang down. She sprawled over the top of the man. He wheezed in pain, trying to lift his arm. Yang scrambled off him. She bumped into the man’s victim.

The lady with the black leather boots hissed in pain, her hand grabbing Yang’s whole arm. Her face was swollen, blood streaked across it. Pink and brown hair matted with the blood that covered her face. She wore what had been once been a white trench coat, now more of a mud and blood colored coat, tears along the sleeves and torso hinting at were the blood came from. Her head rolled back, her eyes unfocused. 

Yang stared at those eyes, one pink, one brown. She knew them, one of her regulars had similar eyes. The lady who always drank a pint of bitters, tipped well. Now she bled all over a back alley, all over Yang. 

She needed help.

Yang wrapped her whole arm around the lady’s shoulder, using her other to push her up. It let out a tortured squeak as Yang put most of her weight on it. She ignored it, she had to help.

Standing, Yang held the lady on her feet, but she teetered on unsteady feet. No way would this lady be able to walk. She barely came up to Yang’s chest, and Yang had seen thicker toothpicks. Bending down, she swung her false arm under her legs, carrying her like a sleepy child.

Yang turned to flee from the alley when a hand grabbed her ankle. The man pulled himself closer to both of them, his other hand raising up.

He had the knife back, he had murder in his eyes. She spun, stomping her bad leg down onto his skull.

Crack.

His empty hand fell back to the ground. Blood pooled out of his temple, his eyes stared at nothing.

Yang limped out of the alley. Her leg screamed in pain, her arm less so. The lady shivered in Yang’s arms, curling up against her.

“Fuck, where is the nearest hospital?” Yang cast her head around, looking for a taxi, or the hospital. Something shook against her breasts, and the lady in her arms shook her head.

“What? I shouldn’t take you to the hospital?”

Her head kept shaking back and forth.

“Where else can I take you? I mean, I have a first aid kit at home…” The lady nodded her head at that. “Fuck, fine. I’m taking a taxi, through.” Relief lifted some of the pressure off. She hadn’t wanted to visit a hospital again either.

A roll of lin thrust its way up from Yang’s embrace. “Oh, well that’ll help.” She took it, and the arm hung back down limpy. The roll was a thick bundle of twenties. Yang guessed it to be close to five hundred lin. More than enough for a taxi ride.

A taxi turned the corner a few minutes later, and Yang flagged it down.

As the door opened, the taxi driver turned around, eyeing the lady in Yang’s arms. “Hey, everything okay?” 

Yang put on her most innocent smile, which looked more guilty than it did innocent. “Yeah, my friend just had too much to drink.” 

The driver frowned, not buying the lie. “Listen, girl, I-”

“Here, take us home, and it’s all yours,” Yang said as she thrusted the roll of lin at the driver. She plucked it from Yang’s hand and turned around. Yang felt the need to ask for half of it back, but it was too late. Maybe the lady had another roll, or a bank card.

“You got it, where to?”

Yang rattled off her address before settling into the back. They all drove in silence. The lady in Yang’s arms felt limp. Her whole arm against the lady’s ribs felt the shallow breaths, so Yang knew she still lived.

The taxi driver dropped them off in front of the brownstone building Yang called home, speeding away as soon as the door closed. Yang felt the same way. The aldreaine from the fight had worn off, and now her body arched more and she felt so tired. The added weight of this lady just piled onto the fatigue.

Careful juggling allowed her to pull her keys out of her pocket and let them in. The building creaked under the night breeze, although it was drowned out by Yang’s footsteps on the wooden floors. A few doors were illuminated from the other side, the tinny pitch of televisions and video games adding to the sound of walking. The elevator took them to the fourth floor. 

The wind pushed this floor around a bit more, the creaking sometimes drowning out Yang’s footsteps. Her place sat at the halfway point of the floor, and Yang swore it had moved to the other side of the place. Her arms and legs felt like lead when she stood in front of her door.

Inside her apartment, she laid the lady down on a threadbare couch and limped over to her bathroom. The apartment had once been part of a bigger place. The landlord had removed all the non load bearing walls, leaving a nearly squarish room. Through clever use of a couch, a trunk, and some curtains, Yang had made three spaces out of it. A living room slash dining room, with couch and television, a bathroom with hot plate and fridge, and a bedroom.

The first aid kit, a robust one from another lifetime, sat dust covered under the sink. Her medicine cabinet held the bottle of aspirin and a translucent orange bottle with one large horse pill. Her bad arm ached, her good arm arched, her bad leg screamed, and that one pill was all she needed to silence them all. It would fog her brain and dull the rest of her body. Maybe after she took care of the lady on her couch.

At the sink, Yang filled a bowl with water and grabbed a few towels. She lugged the large kit out to the sectioned off area she called a living room, Yang sat in front of the unconscious lady. On the couch, the lady seemed even smaller, her coat engulfing her. Her skin seemed even more pale, although the lighting of the area could also be causing that. 

The first aid kit opened eagerly under Yang’s thumbs. First things first, clearing the area around the wounds. Removing the coat winded Yang, and under it, the lady’s clothes were shredded. The shears in the kit made quick work of her top and most of her pants. Removing the boots turned out to be easy, even if they had too many buckles and zippers.

The lady’s body was patterned with a number of old and new scars. The lady was also pretty ripped. It reminded her of the gladiators she knew from her youth. The muscles lacked that body builder definition, but damn, she had them packed on. 

Thin, surgical like scars made a half circle over her throat. Using the water, she cleaned off her neck, but it was just bloody, not injured. Her face had a nasty laceration over her left eye. It would need stitches. Her torso was colored black and blue, although Yang felt nothing deformed. A nasty gash started under her left breast and curved around her side. 

Her forearms were covered in gashes and bruises. One of her finger bent in the familiar shape of being dislocated. Yang hoped that she was unconscious, cause fixing that hurts. Yang also checked to make sure that her biceps were also okay, round and muscular that they were.

The muscles in her legs felt better than the ones in her arm, and Yang’s totally professional touching found no broken bones. Her outer right thigh had been sliced open, and Yang applied pressure and bound it before moving on.

It took a few trips back and forth to the kitchen area to clean off all the blood. The next trip to the laundromat was going to suck. That or living with pink towels. Bloody pink towels. On one hand, it was very metal, on the other, ew.

The iodine in the kit was still good, for another month. Yang eyed the gin bottle on the floor next to her, but its alcohol content was too low to be of much use for cleaning wounds. Holding the needle in her mouth as she used her good hand to thread the it. Her hand shook. Yang hadn’t sewn anyone up since her accident, and before that, she had always used right hand. The replacement hung at her side, useless. This was what Yang needed to do.

A swig from the gin bottle steadied her. She could do this, this was just like training, just like all those times out in the wilderness. A few stitches, and it would all be over.

Her hand steady, Yang closed up the wound on her thigh, than over her eye, the gashes along her arms, the one across her back. Old instincts kicked in, and each wound closed faster than the one before it.

The sun peeked through the browned curtains by the time Yang finished. The gin bottle laid on it side, empty, and Yang envied it. 

Standing on protesting legs, she walked once more into the bathroom and cleaned her hands. Her shirt and pants were ruined, and she stripped out of them. The shower called to her, but Yang felt the siren song of sleep more. The bed had pillows, the shower had yellow tiles, the argument was easily solved. 

Passing the couch, Yang paused. The ugly piece of shit was ruined. No one should be sitting on it, let alone sleeping on it. But Yang only had one bed.

Well, her guest took up less space than anyone else Yang had slept with. Picking her up, Yang limped over to her bed. She laid the lady down gently before removing her false arm and crawling in. The lady rolled into Yang, curling up against her side. Making sure the blanket covered her guest, Yang laid her head down.

For once, sleep came easy.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading! There will be more, and I'm trying something different with this series.
> 
> I say that, but I don't feel like a lot of stuff has the same tune or feel. Well, another chance to find my voice. Also, expect a few crack ships to appear as supporting characters. Some might or might not get tagged, depending on how involved in the story they get.
> 
> Also, in my defense, I didn't intend to write "There was only one bed" but it fit.


End file.
